Business needs to get it Right…….

At a time when the development of front-line people is vital to a businesses customer experience performance, most organisations are cutting back on customer service and sales skill development because of the ineffective ways this training is being carried out.

This according to Chris Bell Managing Director of Customer Experiences Ltd a company that specialises in the development of high quality customer experiences.

Bell said this is resulting in an increase in business costs rather than an investment that delivers increased financial gains.

A Colmar Brunton survey found that 62% of people had stopped dealing with a company, of these 70% had done so because of a poor customer experience.

Business and training providers need to understand that times have changed. The outdated reactive approach to front-line training by sending staff to a one-day customer service training programme and thinking that will solve all their customer service problems, are long gone.

These days there is only one-way organisations will be encouraged to invest more money in this area and that is by seeing real tangible results.

“When front-line skill development training is carried out without a proper customer experience foundation the training itself has little impact on changing behaviour and ultimately little impact on improving customer experiences”.

Bell says that businesses are still ringing asking for a quick fix approach to this important area of their business. It is clear that the financial return from this approach is very low and short-lived. What is needed is a longer-term strategy, one that clearly defines the experience an organisation is committed to deliver to every customer, only then should skill development requirements be identified and this training should be targeted around agreed measurable service standards.

The return on this more comprehensive long-term strategy is significantly higher than the random training workshop approach.

According to Bell there are other benefits that flow from a focus on the customer experience including a reduction in marketing costs, lower employee turnover, the ability to attract the right people and the major benefit in a commoditised market, a sustainable competitive advantage.